The station signed on the air on August 21, 1953, as KAFY-TV.
[2]
It was originally owned by Sheldon Anderson along with
KAFY
radio (550 AM, now 1100 AM). The station originally operated from studios located on Chester Avenue in Bakersfield. It is Bakersfield's oldest television station;
KERO-TV
(channel 23) followed a month later. Four months later, Anderson sold the station to
Chronicle Publishing Company
of
San Francisco
. KAFY-TV was initially an affiliate of the Dumont television network, later becoming a primary CBS affiliate, sharing
ABC
programming with KERO-TV until KLYD-TV (channel 17, now
KGET-TV
) signed on in 1959.
In February 1954, shortly after becoming a full CBS affiliate, channel 29 changed its calls to the current KBAK-TV.
[3]
The
Chronicle
sold the station to Reeves Telecom in 1960. As a CBS and later ABC affiliate, KBAK had aired all of each network's
color
programs in color, and went to full color in 1967. In 1974, KBAK swapped affiliations with channel 17, then known as KJTV, and became an ABC affiliate.
[4]
[5]
In 1964, Reeves sold KBAK to Chicago-based Harriscope Broadcasting, which also owned
WSNS
in Chicago (now a
Telemundo
O&O
) and a partial stake in
KRQE
in
Albuquerque
(now owned by
Nexstar Media Group
). In the late 1980s, KBAK started signing off only on Fridays and Saturdays, which as a CBS affiliate it continued to do until May 2008, when the sign-offs on KBAK and KBFX were discontinued and were replaced by a simulcast of the Kern Weather Channel, which is also available on
digital cable
systems in the Bakersfield area.
In 1986, Harriscope sold KBAK to Burnham Broadcasting, which also owned
KHON-TV
in
Honolulu
and would later acquire
WVUE
in
New Orleans
,
WALA-TV
in
Mobile, Alabama
, and
WLUK
in
Green Bay, Wisconsin
. In 1995, Burnham sold most of its stations to SF Broadcasting, a joint venture between Fox and
Savoy Pictures
, but KBAK was not included in the sale to SF Broadcasting, and was instead spun off to Westwind Communications, a locally based company linked to former Burnham executives.
After
McGraw-Hill
(then-owner of KERO-TV) learned in November 1994 that its
KMGH-TV
in Denver would be losing its CBS affiliation to
KCNC-TV
, it signed a groupwide affiliation deal which called for all of its stations, including KMGH-TV and KERO-TV, to become ABC affiliates. KBAK rejoined CBS on March 4, 1996, after KERO-TV's affiliation contract with CBS expired.
On August 6, 2007, Westwind Communications announced the sale of KBAK and KBFX-CA to
Fisher Communications
of
Seattle
.
[6]
The deal closed on January 1, 2008. This marked a re-entry to the Central Valley for Fisher, who had previously bought and sold KJEO (now
KGPE
) in
Fresno
in the late 1990s.
In mid May 2010, KBAK became the first station in Bakersfield to begin broadcasting local newscasts in
16:9
widescreen
standard definition
. Then on January 16, 2011, KBAK took it one step further to become the first station in Bakersfield to launch local news in true high definition.
[7]
The KBFX shows were included in the upgrade to HD; however, until recently, they were presented in downconverted standard definition widescreen on KBAK-DT2 (which serves as a full-power companion to KBFX's low-power
Class A
digital terrestrial signal).
KBAK-TV, KBFX, and Fisher Communications' other holdings were sold to
Sinclair Broadcast Group
in a transaction announced on April 10, 2013.
[8]
[9]
The deal was completed on August 8, 2013.
[10]
The transaction marked a re-entry into California for Sinclair since it sold off its
Sacramento
station
KOVR
to CBS at the end of April 2005.
The current
announcer
for KBAK and KBFX is nationally recognized voice-over Eric Gordon.
[11]